Big Alcohol moves in to dominate the cannabis market

Big Alcohol moves in to dominate the cannabis market

VicesAugust 28, 2018By Reilly Capps

Guiness. Corona. Coors.

Everybody who makes alcohol wants a piece of the cannabis market, up to and including your buddy who used to distill moonshine in his bathtub and now has six CBD plants growing outside his mom's doublewide.

Big Alcohol money is overflowing in cannabis like a red Solo during a game of King's Cup. The cannabis stock markets shook on news that Diageo — parent company of Guinness, Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker — is looking to wire billions of dollars into some cannabis company or another.

Nobody even knows which pot company Diageo is going to invest in. Could be Aphria. Could be Aurora Cannabis. But some group of pot growers are about to be able to afford a Tesla … dealership. Your buddy with his six plants is waiting anxiously by the phone.

This twitterpated anticipation of a massive new money dump comes after two other huge moves by Big Alcohol into Little Cannabis.

Molson Coors — maker of both Molson and Coors — entered into a $590 million deal to partner with the Hydropothecary Corporation to brew cannabis-infused beverages.

(These are all Canadian companies. Canada is the center of the pot world right now, and will be till the United States congress logs off Twitter and legalizes the plant nationwide.)

[Lagunitas Brewing, owned by giant Heineken, is moving ahead with an alcohol-free brew with 5 mg of THC per can.]

Why is Big Alcohol investing in cannabis? Well, there's the factor of money. Cannabis is making money, and Big Alcohol wants money. A second factor is money, and money is the third factor involved here. Some investing experts say that money may be a giant part of their thinking, while others say money is a humungus part.

See, the cannabis industry is growing like Blue Dream in the sun, and alcohol is slumping like your uncle at Christmas after six Spanish Coffees. Folks are putting down their koozies and picking up vape pens.

In states with medical marijuana, alcohol sales dropped 15 percent,Forbes reported. "Reduction in the U.S.'s overall alcohol consumption appears directly related to the rise of medical marijuana laws," Forbes wrote. As more states free the weed, alcohol sales may totally toilet.

Long-time pot smokers can be a paranoid bunch. Fluoride is mind control, Hillary Clinton is a lizard person, blah blah blah. After cannabis legalization, lots of stoners paused Bojack Horseman and worried aloud that their beloved bud industry would be taken over by some behemoth industry the weed-heads thought was evil: tobacco was a favorite bet. So was Big Pharma.

But it may be that Big Tobacco and Big Pharma aren't moving quick enough.

Big Alcohol is your new source for the weed you love.

Does it matter? All these companies are essentially drug dealers. And just like every other drug dealer — from your old RA to the Mexican cartels — Big Alcohol is meeting market demand. Don't want our old drug? Check out our new drug.